A citizens advocacy group will mount a petition drive in Tokyo and Osaka to seek support for a local referendum on the use of nuclear power.
A citizens advocacy group will mount a petition drive in Tokyo and Osaka to seek support for a local referendum on the use of nuclear power.
The campaign for signatures is set to kick off Dec. 1.
Several celebrities have lent their names to the drive. The group is eager to make its activities more widely known to the public amid heightened awareness of nuclear energy issues following the crisis at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
"The issue of nuclear power is a crucial subject that affects people's everyday lives. Indeed, it could cost them their lives," Hajime Imai, a journalist and expert on referendums, said at an Oct. 14 news conference in Tokyo. "Such important decisions should be made not by the government or power companies, but by local residents through referendums."
Imai is president of Minna-de-kimeyo-Genpatsu-Kokumintohyo (Let everyone participate in making decisions on nuclear power by referendum).
The group, based in Tokyo, was formed in June as part of a grass-roots movement that took hold following the nuclear crisis in Fukushima.
Imai also held a news conference in Osaka on Oct. 17 to outline the referendum campaign.
The law requires the signatures of at least one-50th of all voters in a municipal area before a petition can be submitted to the head of the municipal government demanding that a particular ordinance be established, revised or abolished.
In Tokyo, 214,000 signatures are required for such a petition. From Dec. 1, representatives of the group will solicit signatures supporting its efforts on streets in Shibuya, Shinjuku and Ikebukuro, among other busy areas of Tokyo.
"We aim for 300,000 signatures, just in case some of the signatures gathered are declared invalid," Imai said, adding that the group planned to reach its target by the end of December.
Representatives for the group's activities in Tokyo include fiction writer Takashi Tsujii (real name: Seiji Tsutsumi); actor Taro Yamamoto; columnist Yukichi Amano; and Eiko Nakamura, chief of the Seikatsusha Network, an organization designed to improve people's lives in Tokyo. Representatives for Osaka are Imai and Toyotake Hanafusadayu, a performer of Japanese Joruri puppet play.
The group said it decided to target Tokyo and Osaka because of the close relationships between respective regional power companies and the governments of the two cities.
The Tokyo metropolitan government owns 2.7 percent of outstanding shares in Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the Fukushima plant, while the Osaka government holds a roughly 9-percent stake in Kansai Electric Power Co.
"The Fukushima plant was built to supply power to Tokyo, and then the accident took place. We want people in Tokyo to bear this in their minds and squarely face this incident as if it is their own problem," Yamamoto said at the news conference in Tokyo.
The group is also gearing up for a similar campaign in Shizuoka Prefecture, where Chubu Electric Power Co.'s Hamaoka nuclear power plant is located. All reactors at the plant, located in Omaezaki, have been offline since mid-May at the request of former Prime Minister Naoto Kan. This is because a major earthquake is expected to strike the area.
Currently, the group only has the support of about 60 people in the prefecture. The group will set up a local organization in Shizuoka in March and begin collecting signatures next summer.